


how hard we tried

by yeahokay



Series: Swan Song [2]
Category: Constantine (TV), DCU (Comics), Hellblazer & Related Fandoms, Justice League Dark (Comics), Zatanna (Comics)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Feelings, Fluff, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:22:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27254122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeahokay/pseuds/yeahokay
Summary: As Nick descends further into his dark magic addiction and obsession with the Books of Magic, Zatanna and John end up spending a lot more time together, just the two of them.  The more Nick pulls away, the closer Zatanna and John become.Set a short time before Nick goes full super villain in Justice League Dark #0
Relationships: John Constantine/Nick Necro/Zatanna Zatara, John Constantine/Zatanna Zatara
Series: Swan Song [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988194
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	1. can't let it go

**Author's Note:**

> Semi-Warning: Nick is kind of a boundary-pushing asshole in this, so even though there's a lot of fluff, when Nick's in the picture there is definitely some awkwardness and angst. He's struggling with an addiction.
> 
> In my brain, this is set in the year 2005 but it doesn't really matter for purposes of this story except for my own personal head canon that the political landscape in the US around this time breaks Nick a little and sets him on a path to finding the Books of Magic.
> 
> Title is from (in my opinion) maybe one of the greatest pre-breakup, we-know-where-this-is-headed-and-we-can't-stop-it songs ever, Both Hands by Ani DiFranco

Zatanna picks up the deck of cards in front of her on the kitchen counter and gives them an artful shuffle, the cards tumbling together, like a stream of water effortlessly cascading into her hands.

She glances at the front door. “Okay, well,” Zatanna says. “I officially have no idea where Nick is.”

“Ah, probably got caught up on something,” John says. “He’ll be back soon.”

Zatanna is trying to be chill about Nick leaving and not saying anything about where he’s going and just… coming home whenever. He’s been putting himself under a lot of pressure lately – but also, come on Nick. A heads up or something would be nice. They were all supposed to eat dinner together.

“Want to go again?” John says.

Zatanna’s mouth twitches upward when she looks at him. “Sure,” she says. “If you want to.”

“Yeah, give us a second,” John says as he balances his cigarette in his mouth and begins to roll up the sleeves of his white shirt. He smirks at her. “Need to get prepared, yeah?”

John recently gave up the punk rock t-shirts and jeans and started wearing the shirt and tie combo similar to Nick. It suits him. It’s funny, Zatanna thinks that he looks more like himself in this outfit, like he’s truly stepping into himself for the first time. There’s a different energy about him lately, a different kind of security or confidence that hasn’t been there before.

Zatanna and John have been spending a lot more time together, just the two of them. From the beginning, she and John have always had a familiar, easy rhythm to their relationship, but now she finds herself getting to enjoy the playful, slightly goofy side of him that doesn’t tend to come out much when anyone else is around. She can’t help but enjoy this special feeing, the pleasure of seeing another hidden side of him that others can’t see.

“You sure you want to do this, Zee?” John says. “I would hate to sully your reputation.”

“God, you are the literal worst,” Zatanna says, but she’s smiling at him. “Stop stalling and pick up your deck.”

“I’m not stalling, I’m preparing to actually win this time.” John picks up his deck and checks the first card on top and places it back in the middle of the deck. “No cheating, now.”

Zatanna raises an eyebrow. “Wow. Really?”

John pretends to intently shuffle his deck. “What?”

Zatanna just looks at him.

John finally meets her eyes. “What?” he says, pretending to be deeply offended. “I simply said –”

“Yes, thank you, John Constantine, for reminding _me_ not to cheat in this game.” 

“I know you, Zee,” John says, smiling to himself. He takes one last drag on his cigarette and blows the smoke away from her before he stubs it out in the ashtray. “Not to be trusted.”

Zatanna rolls her eyes and chooses the card off the top of her deck and shows it to John. “Okay, your card is seven of clubs.”

“Okay,” John says, and fans through the deck and picks a card out of the middle and shows it to her. “Yours is… nine of diamonds.”

“You always pick that one,” Zatanna says, teasing him.

John shrugs. “I like it.”

“Prepare to lose.”

“I always do,” John says. He winks at her. “Okay, on —”

“Ready, go!”

“Oi!” John says, starting to protest, but then has to focus on catching up.

When she was a kid, Zatanna and her father invented a card game ( _Deeps –_ speed, backwards – she wasn’t that creative at six years old) to practice sleight of hand magic.

The game evolved over the years, getting more and more complicated the older she got, but the general rules always stayed the same. _Deeps_ involves performing a series of sleight of hand card tricks, ranging in difficulty from easy to very hard, one after another in rapid succession. The Two Hand Glide, the Braue Reversal, Twisted Aces, and so on, including several that she developed herself.

First one to get through all the tricks wins. No magic allowed.

Giovanni Zatara’s insistence that Zatanna know how to perform various magic tricks without using magic used to annoy her so much— especially as a teenager— but she sort of appreciates it now.

She’s been using so much magic lately between her shows and scrying at night for the Books of Magic with Nick that she’s starting to feel pretty run down. Anything that doesn’t involve actual magic right now is a fun, welcome change.

She off-handedly mentioned the game to John a few days ago, and they’ve been playing together the last few days as a way to kill time without using any magic. Zatanna beats him handily every time, but John – in true John Constantine fashion – is a quick study. She notices he has been catching up the last few days. 

Zatanna finds it sort of hilarious watching John do the same tricks as her. Like his magic, John’s versions of the same tricks are slightly different from her’s – they’re a little rougher, self-taught.

“Wait—how are you beating me?” Zatanna says, laughing. That jerk, there’s no way. She even had a head start on him.

John still somehow manages to pull the audience card from the middle of the deck on the last shuffle, finishing the final combination a few seconds before her.

“Ha!” John says, triumphantly slamming the nine of diamonds on the counter. “I win.”

“Wow, okay!” Zatanna says, “I’m impressed.” Honestly, she kind of is. He’s getting better at this.

“Well, you know, I might not have been taught by one of the greatest stage magicians in the world, but I think I’ve finally sussed out – ”

“Hold on.”

Zatanna gives John a Look as she picks up his deck. She performs a trick where the cards neatly fall in a straight line, one after the other and she waves her hand over John’s deck, searching for the one that she feels the magical signature from.

“Really?” Zatanna says. She pulls out the nine of diamonds and shakes her head as she holds the card up with two fingers. “You enchanted a card? You are _such_ a cheater.”

John puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels a little. He winks at her. “Ah, well, you just said pick up your deck, love. This card was already in there.”

“Okay, that’s not – wait, what exactly did you do to it?” Zatanna says as she examines the card. “I don’t know if I’ve seen something like this before.”

“Well,” John says, and he’s got that excited, proud look to him even though Zatanna can tell he’s trying to be cool about it. “It’s a nasty little enchantment that I sort of discovered by accident. I can change the appearance of the card into whatever I want. As long as it’s generally the same size, of course.”

He takes the card from her hand and flips it around. The card becomes the ace of spades. He performs a simple sleight of hand motion and he changes it into an ATM card, an ID badge with his picture on it, a folded up ten dollar bill.

“Cool trick. Still cheating, though.”

“Difference of opinion, then. _I_ didn’t use any magic.”

“Um, an enchanted card is still magic, _dick_ ,” Zatanna says, laughing. “I think that means you lose. Disqualified.”

John clicks his tongue. “I think that means I won, actually.”

“You didn’t win!” Zatanna says. “You totally cheated!”

“Technically we both cheated, love,” John says, grinning at her from ear to ear. “I just did it better.”

**

Zatanna unilaterally decides they are going to walk to get takeout because she’s starving and doesn’t want to wait for Nick any longer.

Nick still isn’t back when they get home.

After dinner, John breaks out the whiskey and they lazily lounge on the couch, half watching _Late Night with Conan O’Brien_ and half arguing over whether Zatanna conjuring the eggroll the restaurant forgot to put in her take out bag constitutes stealing.

“Hey,” Zatanna says. She pokes John with her foot for emphasis and grins. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth and she suddenly realizes she is more than a little drunk. “Hey. If you pay for it, it isn’t stealing.”

“Ah, there it is. The justification afterward,” John says, his words slurring slightly. “Part of my ritual as well.” John leans his head against the back of the couch and looks at her. “I knew it. No one knows you like me, love. Deep down you are a reckless con artist. Never going to make it into the Justice League, you know, scamming people like that.”

Zatanna just laughs because she knows John’s just doing what he does, which is push her buttons for fun. “Yeah, whatever.”

John drunkenly smiles at her, his eyes half-lidded. His tie is loose and hanging halfway down his shirt. “We recognize our own, love.”

“I think you’re better than you realize,” Zatanna says. “You always have been.”

John shakes his head and pulls out his packet of Silk Cuts.

“There you go again, Zee,” John says. He pulls a cigarette out of the packet with his teeth. He pats his pockets and then starts drunkenly searching around the couch for a lighter. “Making the mistake of projecting the good in your heart onto a heartless bastard me.”

“John,” Zatanna says. “Shut up.”

She pulls the couch pillow out from behind her back and tosses it at him.

She doesn’t mean to hit him but she’s drunk and John turns to check the couch cushions for his lighter just as she throws it and the pillow whacks him in the face. The force of it breaks the cigarette in half, so that he’s staring at her for a second with a raised eyebrow and a broken cigarette dangling from his lips.

He looks so ridiculous and Zatanna is trying to hold it in but then she’s laughing so hard, a real full-throated, joyful laugh and then John is shaking his head and laughing along with her.

“Alright, that’s it,” John says, and dramatically throws the cigarette away over his shoulder and pounces on her.

She’s still laughing when John kisses her and she can feel him smiling against her mouth and he tastes like whiskey and smoke but in a not-unpleasant way. She can feel the heat of him, his hands starting on her hips and then running up against her corset and she wants this so much, she’s been thinking about him all day. Zatanna starts kissing him down the side of his neck, using her teeth in a way she knows he loves and John makes an appreciative growl against her shoulder – and that’s when she feels Nick enter the magical protection field around the apartment and the locks click open on the door.

“Jesus, this apartment is such a fucking shithole,” Nick says by way of greeting.

Zatanna feels John chuckle a little against her throat and when he leans back they quietly smile at each other – like, yep, that’s Nick. John kisses Zatanna quickly on the mouth one last time – a To Be Continued - and he climbs off her a bit and they both sit up and look at Nick over the back of the couch.

Nick swings the apartment door shut behind him with his foot. He loosens his tie as he drops a large duffle bag filled with something heavy by the front door and it hits the ground with a loud clang.

“Hey!” Zatanna says. “Welcome back.”

“I’m sick of walking up all these fucking stairs every day, especially when it’s this fucking hot outside,” Nick says. “I know you love this place, Zee, but I’m over this fucking apartment.”

“I mean, we could start looking –,” Zatanna starts, but suddenly she notices that John is using the distraction of Nick being home to make an attempt at stealing the rest of her eggroll and gets distracted.

“No!” she playfully shrieks at John, wrestling on top of him. “Don’t you dare. That’s mine.”

Zatanna just happens to look over the back of the couch and for a second she sees Nick watching them, his jaw a little tight. When he makes eye contact with her, though, Nick turns abruptly and shrugs off his trench coat and focuses on getting a mug down from the cabinet over the sink in the kitchen.

Zatanna frowns a little and watches him over the couch. “Hey, where were you today? We missed you.”

Nick doesn’t answer as he pulls down the whiskey from the cabinet and pours a shot in the mug. He looks… terrible. His white shirt is rumpled, his loosened tie sitting slightly askew. Sweat glistens on his temples.

Zatanna climbs off of John slightly and watches Nick in the kitchen. “More Books of Magic stuff?”

“Yep,” Nick says, and, well, okay then, Zatanna thinks, _that_ subject is definitely closed for business. “I’m fucking wiped. What do you guys want to do for dinner?”

“Oh,” Zatanna says. “We got Chinese food from the place down the street.”

Nick takes a breath and looks up at the ceiling, clearly annoyed. “You guys ate without me again?”

“Sorry, Nicky,” John says, and he at least sounds a little apologetic even though his words are slurring together a bit. “Got your usual.”

“It’s in the fridge,” Zatanna says.

“Thanks.”

Nick tosses back the first shot from the mug, and then pours himself another one before opening up the fridge and gathering a few of the takeout containers inside.

Zatanna suddenly notices that she and John are sitting very close while Nick is already sort of annoyed and, it’s so stupid, Zatanna doesn’t even know why she does it, but she lets go of John’s wrist that’s holding the rest of the eggroll and moves to the other side of the couch away from him so that Nick can sit in between them.

John gets a weird look on his face she can’t really read but then he pops what is left of the eggroll in his mouth.

Nick sits down between them with a thump and half-heartedly picks at the noodles in one of the containers with some chopsticks. He takes a few bites and then puts the container on the coffee table and picks up the mug instead.

“Hey,” Zatanna says. She can feel the sharp, crackling feel of recent intense black magic use coming off of him. “What’s going on? You okay?”

“Huh?” Nick says. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Sorry.” He leans over and quickly kisses her. “You mind cooling it off in here a little bit? I feel like I’m burning up and this fucking air conditioner isn’t cutting it.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure,” Zatanna says. “ _Ezeerb looc_.” A soft breeze floats through the room, ruffling their hair back. It feels good in the apartment, so different from the muggy heat outside.

Zatanna can tell that she’s been using a lot of magic lately though - even conjuring the breeze makes her wince slightly as it gives her a small headache that lingers for a few minutes. They really need to find out a way to fix that air conditioner. The easiest magic to do is always the most temporary and their easy magic fixes to the air conditioner only seem to last so long, covering up the problem instead of actually fixing it. Zatanna makes a mental note to actually sit down one day and actually fix it.

Nick puts both arms across the back of the couch and sighs, one arm draped across John’s shoulders, his hand absentmindedly rubbing the back of John’s neck.

“Thanks,” Nick says.

The three of them sit in comfortable silence for a while, enjoying the cool air and watching Conan interview some actress. Nick doesn’t touch the rest of his food but finishes what is left in the mug.

“Alright,” Nick says when the show ends. He quickly runs his hands over his face a few times like he’s trying to perk himself up. “Okay. You guys ready to get to it?”

John looks at him, a lecherous grin spreading on his face. “What exactly did you have in mind, mate?”

But Nick doesn’t notice, he’s already off the couch and headed back to the front door to dig through the duffle bag.

“Well,” Nick says, calling over his shoulder. “I’ve got a few new symbols for the scrying circle tonight.”

John leans his head back on the couch and shuts his eyes as he lets out a long breath, a low rumble of annoyance in the back of his throat.

“I came up with them today—“ Nick says.

“Um,” Zatanna says. “It’s kind of late, Nick.”

“Yeah, I know,” Nick says, flipping through a notebook he’s brought over. “I need your help though – I can’t do this kind of scrying on my own, you know that.”

“I know,” Zatanna says. She massages her temple. “But I’ve got a show tomorrow and two this weekend.”

Nick pushes a small bookshelf out of the way to create a larger open space on the hardwood floor.

“Yeah,” Nick says a little absentmindedly. He kneels and starts to draw a few symbols in chalk on the hardwood floor. John walks over to watch him draw but doesn’t move to help him. “I know. I’m telling you though, Zee, when you see this one –“

“We’ve been using a lot of magic lately,” Zatanna says, and she winces inwardly because that comes out sounding a little more annoyed than she anticipated. She wishes she wasn’t drunk right now. “I’m just— I’m starting to feel it.”

Nick suddenly stops and notices John and Zatanna staring at him and sits back on his heels, considering this.

“No, no, you’re right,” Nick says, but it’s like he’s distracted or something. “Sorry. You’re right.”

“We can try this later in the week or something,” Zatanna offers, her tone softer now, an apology.

“Yeah,” Nick says, but he doesn’t stand up and runs a finger over the chalk line.

John shifts uncomfortably between them, hands in his pockets, like he’s caught in the middle of something he doesn’t really want to be a part of.

“I just can’t focus on anything else until I get this done, you know?” Nick says. He laughs a little to himself and knocks on the floor with his knuckles a few times. “This fucking symbol is going to drive me crazy all night until I get this out of my head.”

“Ah, well I think we could all use a bit of a break, though, yeah?” John says, rubbing the back of his neck.

Zatanna frowns a little because, yikes, if John is saying he needs a break, he must really be feeling it too because there’s almost nothing that John loves more than intense dark magic use – he even relishes the sore, hung over feeling afterward.

“I’m starting to feel a little strung out myself,” John says with a small, self-conscious laugh. He steps closer to Nick and raises an eyebrow. “Plenty of things to do with a night off, Nicky.”

Nick smiles a little at John and stands up. He looks like he’s almost ready to follow John into the bedroom, but then he looks down at the notebook and pauses.

“Okay, look,” Nick says. He licks his bottom lip and runs a hand through his hair. “Hear me out! Hear me out. Half an hour.”

Zatanna sighs. She wishes she wasn’t drunk right now; the feeling is suddenly becoming unpleasant in this situation. She’s horny and tired and she can tell the magic overuse from the last week is getting to her. They’ve been scrying for the Books of Magic almost every night this week.

“Look,” Nick says. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, you know that. I’m really feeling it too, I get it. So it won’t be long.”

“Nick –” Zatanna starts.

“Just a little bit tonight,” Nick says, taking her hand. “And then I can relax and I’ll take care of both of you. We’re coven, right? I’m doing this for _us_. All this shit will be worth it in the end, I promise.”

Nick smiles at her, his eyes flashing with that familiar, hellfire hot look and it reminds her of when they first met, when he was trying to convince her to go out with him. Just one drink.

He always did have a way to talk her into things.

“Come on, darlin’,” Nick says softly.

Zatanna looks at John and he shrugs at her as if to say it’s up to you.

Shit.

“Yeah, okay,” Zatanna sighs. “For a little while.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sort of fascinated by the slow decline of the John/Nick/Zee relationship that we don't really get to see in the comics. The three of them are just so fun to write. 
> 
> Also I shamelessly stole a line from Brooklyn 99 and also the Justice League Dark movie (but it just fit so perfectly, especially with how it sort of foreshadows how Nick eventually comes to view Zee/John's relationship).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. and I can't get through

It’s late when Zatanna finally leaves The Oblivion after her show and decides to walk home. The night air is warm but not uncomfortable, and a pleasant breeze blows her braid back as she walks. For a while, her mind is clear and she enjoys people watching on the street.

She lingered a while after the show to chat with Mikey, her new stage manager (totally a non-magical, normal human but also weirdly comfortable in circles like The Oblivion). They had a drink at the bar, watched some of the regulars trickle in and out, swapped stories. Truthfully, Zatanna probably could have left a few hours earlier but Mikey is awesome and also Zatanna didn’t really want to go home right away.

Although her mind has been clear for most of the walk, when Zatanna turns and passes the old bodega on the corner, she starts thinking about Nick.

She doesn’t really understand how or why things have gotten so weird lately with him. It seems like since the beginning of summer, things have been steadily sliding downward, increment by tiny increment, this slow descent into where they are now.

She’s bickering with Nick all the time over stupid stuff. Nick spending more time away, the amount of money he’s spending on arcane magic artifacts, Zatanna leaving her things all over the apartment, why the sink is full of dishes, who forgot to pay the gas bill.

They don’t, however, fight over Big Stuff. How worried she and John are about Nick’s increasing obsession with the Books of Magic, how she’s feeling drained in a way she’s never experienced before from all the dark magic use, Nick’s sudden weirdness about how close she and John are. The Big Stuff just somehow still hangs between the three of them, unsaid but coloring every interaction.

John and Nick don’t fight. Not really, not in the way that she and Nick fight. John’s completely fucked up childhood and adolescence likely plays the main factor in that. John mostly does his best to avoid major conflict with Nick – they have their spats, sure, but Nick always seems to push back way harder and harsher on John, which then causes John to retreat, which then means Zatanna usually ends up being one doing all the fighting, which she hates.

Zatanna is still going to work, still doing shows but she’s the only reason they have any money to pay rent. They haven’t taken on a new exorcism client — or any case, really – in a month. So much for being "humanity's first responders to the underworld."

She… doesn’t want to call her dad and talk about money. That would be a whole thing. It brings up questions and then conversations that she doesn’t want to have, especially right now.

The few times John has tried to take her on a con to make some extra money, it mostly just made her feel a little weird, scamming people like that. The last time, John had just laughed and said growing up around Bruce Wayne really did a number on her ethics.

John does odd magic jobs or cons by himself now. Nick used to accompany him sometimes, before all this, but now he’s devoted himself full time to the Books of Magic. Zatanna is by herself most nights at the club, performing while the other two are out.

They are three people living in the same apartment, ships passing in the night, only coming together once a day to perform various dark magic rituals or scrying to help Nick search for the Books of Magic.

Nick has always been sort of an asshole, but lately there is something extra pulling him away. At first, his search for the Books of Magic was fine, she figured this was more of a short-term problem. This isn’t the first magical thing that Nick has become sort of obsessed with over the time she’s known him. It’s just that Nick has an addictive personality.

She figured that eventually things would go back to normal or they’d all have a talk and hash it out and that would be it. The Books of Magic would become something like a side hobby for Nick, a deep interest but not something that went beyond that once he scratched that itch.

It feels like she’s constantly apologizing for wanting to do anything other than searching for the Books of Magic. Sorry, Nick, for living in the same apartment and having a job and eating dinner and wanting to have sex. It’s always more magic, more time, more of herself given over to the cause of finding the Books.

It’s… a lot. And it’s taking a toll on all of them.

Zatanna really doesn’t enjoy the dark magic they’re using lately. Dark magic, particularly the kind that Nick has been pushing lately, makes her feel tired and drained in a way she doesn’t normally feel from using her own magic. Sometimes she feels like she’s so tired she’s going to lose control of her magic, a new feeling. She’s never been sure if that’s the human part or the homo magi part of her. Did her mom ever get sick from magic overuse? She wishes she could ask her.

Nick and John’s magic is different, drawing from the world around them. They’re purely human and it’s obvious the intense dark magic use is taking a heavy toll on their bodies.

Nick looks terrible lately - whatever he’s doing all those hours he’s away from the apartment combined with their now nightly scrying sessions are definitely affecting him. Nick has almost permanent dark circles under his eyes, and his cheeks have started to get this awful, sunken look. He’s lost a lot of weight.

She loves Nick and she loves John and she loves the huge amount of insane magical power she feels when it’s all three of them working together. She’s been In This from the beginning – way before Nick proposed binding their souls together. She knew before Nick and John knew where this relationship was headed. It’s not like she wants to leave. She’s in this, for better or worse.

She made that vow and she intends to keep it.

But part of her can’t help but think back to when this all started when they first became coven. When they first bound their souls together.

When everything was just so… _easy._

And she wasn’t so tired all the time.

When Zatanna gets to their door on the top floor of the building, she stares at the cracked, old door for a second before taking off the magical protection spells and opening the door.

Chas’ booming laugh echoes from the front of the apartment and surprises her.

This was… not what she was expecting.

Zatanna smiles to herself. It’s been a long time since they have seen Chas. His even, calming presence is something they could all use right now. Come to think of it, Chas always seems to show up when John needs him. When they need him.

“No no no,” John slurs. He has a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. Some of the liquid in his glass sloshes over the side as he talks but John doesn’t seem to notice. “This is the best _part_ , Chas!“

“Look, none of that evening had what I would call a best part,” Chas says, laughing. “It started bad and just got worse.”

“Don’t listen to him,” John slurs, grinning at Nick. “This one didn’t know I was just taking the piss out of the bloody angel!”

Nick laughs harder than she’s seen him laugh in a long time. He still looks terrible - the circles under his eyes are the darkest she’s seen them - but it’s like a weight has been lifted from him.

“Johnny,” Nick says, wiping tears out of his eyes. “You’re fucking crazy.”

John stumbles a little as he slides down on the couch next to Nick.

Nick wraps an arm around John’s shoulders and he presses a sloppy kiss to the side of his head. He takes the cigarette out of John’s hand and takes a drag and John watches Nick smoke and smiles lopsidedly at him, drunkenly mooning over Nick like he’s the greatest thing he’s ever seen.

“Fucking brilliant,” John says.

“As usual we seem to remember this night very differently,” Chas says fondly.

“Zee!” Nick says, noticing her watching them from the doorway. His eyes are bright and happy in a way that she hasn’t seen in a while. “We were just talking about the last time Chas and John took a road trip.”

Chas and John drunkenly dissolve into fits of laughter at this comment. Zatanna smiles and just shakes her head at them.

Nick takes a final drag and hands John his cigarette back.

Zatanna watches Nick smile at John, with that genuinely happy, unguarded look in his eyes that he used to get and Zatanna finds herself smiling too and just – God, _this_ is the way it’s supposed to be between them. Why can’t it be like this all the time?

Maybe things are back to normal and the fever of the last few months has broken.

“Zee,” Chas says. “I don’t know how you deal with this madness all day.”

“I don’t know either. But they’re cute, so I think I’ll keep them.”

“You’re a saint,” Chas says, laughing. “These assholes are lucky to have you.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Nick says, his voice slurring slightly. He beams at Zatanna, his eyes shining. “I’m just glad she’s on our side.”

“You just say that because you didn’t have a full set of plates before I moved in,” Zatanna says. “Or a couch.”

“ ‘ey, now,” Nick says. His Brooklyn drawl seems to come out a little more when he’s been drinking. “That futon was comfortable.”

“It was also disgusting,” Zatanna says. “I did you both a favor by getting rid of it.”

“Yeah, and then you made us carry this bloody thing up all those bloody stairs,” John slurs, motioning to the couch. “I wouldn’t call that a favor, love.”

Nick reaches behind him and grabs Zatanna’s hand. “How’re ya? Missed ya.”

“Hi,” Zatanna says. She gives Nick’s hand a squeeze and he smiles at her, his eyes half lidded. He only gets overtly sappy like this when he’s truly drunk. “Okay, you all are clearly blitzed and I need to catch up. Who needs something from the kitchen? Chas, you good?”

Chas finishes what is left in his beer bottle. “Yeah, I could use another one. I’ll help you.”

“Zee, bring-us-another-whiskey, eh?” John says, his words sloshing together. He motions with the empty bottle on the coffee table. “We… drank this one.”

Zatanna laughs but she runs a hand affectionately through John’s hair before reaching down and picking up the bottle. “I can see that.”

“ _I_ can see that,” John says. He closes his eyes and smiles as he leans his head back against the couch.

“That doesn’t – okay,” Zatanna says, laughing. “You’re a mess.”

She takes the empty whiskey bottle and Chas picks up a few of the empty beer bottles off of the coffee table on his way to join her in the kitchen.

“It’s been a while, Chas,” Zatanna says as she grabs an open bottle of wine from the refrigerator. “How’s Renee?”

Chas hands Zatanna a wine glass from the cabinet above his head.

“She’s good, she’s good,” Chas says. He grabs a beer out of the fridge and opens it with a bottle opener on the counter. “I think we’re going to start trying to have a kid soon.”

“Chas!” Zatanna says. “That’s awesome! Congratulations.”

“Well,” Chas says. “Don’t congratulate me yet. But thanks. We’re pretty excited. You know Renee, she’s already got everything planned out.”

Zatanna takes an indulgent sip of her wine and smiles at Chas as he talks about married life. In another life or on another Earth, she and Renee might have been friends but Renee hates John Constantine and everything – and everyone - that comes along with him sort of gets caught up in that (including Zatanna and Nick). Renee has never been outright rude to her, but never anything more friendly than pointedly icy.

Zatanna is exhausted and kind of wants to just go to bed but having Chas here, everyone hanging out together, Nick being normal for once is just so nice. She gets a little lost in thought, enjoying everything feeling like it was for a minute so she only vaguely catches Chas saying something about all the vitamins Renee has made him start taking.

Zatanna looks up to see Chas watching her. She blinks at him.

“God, I’m sorry, Chas,” she says, shaking her head, a little embarrassed. “What did you say? I’ve had a long day.”

Chas looks over to John and Nick sitting together on the couch and Zatanna turns to watch them as well. Nick whispers something to John, his forehead pressed against the side of John’s head. John laughs a little and drunkenly turns to him, grinning.

“Hey, Zee,” Chas says. “Look, uh. I know it’s not really my place but… Is everything okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“You look kind of… tired,” Chas says. He suddenly realizes what that sounds like after it comes out and he winces. “I mean— Sorry! I just mean generally, all three of you look a little –”

“Chas. It’s okay,” Zatanna says, laughing. She’s smiling but suddenly she realizes that she must look on the outside how she feels on the inside and it’s hard to not be a little self-conscious about it. “You’re right – I am tired. We all are.”

“How’s everything going?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. It’s fine,” Zatanna says. That’s about the understatement of the year but she doesn’t really want to get into it. “We’re all using a lot of magic lately.”

“Seems like John and Nick are feeling it, too.”

“Yeah.”

Chas takes a drink of his beer and Zatanna watches as Nick grab the back of John’s neck and pulls him to him and kisses him hard. When Nick pulls back, John smirks and murmurs something that makes Nick laugh. She loves watching the way those two look at each other almost as much as she loves the way they look at her. All the little pieces of their lives coming together.

“Things were… a little weird before you got here.”

Zatanna frowns. “What? Really?”

“Well,” Chas says, a little awkward like he’s trying to figure out how to say it. “I mean, you know Nick. When things don’t go according to plan –”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. Nick is…” Zatanna makes a face and searches for the right thing to say to elaborate on that and ends up just waving her hand and leaving that alone. “Nick is Nick. What did he say to you?”

“Nah, he didn’t say anything to me. Just seemed kind of annoyed I was here when he got home, that’s all.” Chas is quiet for a second and he watches John and Nick on the couch for another moment. “He kind of got into it with John about something – anyway. Doesn’t matter. Looks like it’s all fine now.”

Zatanna traces the rim of her wine glass. “Nick has… been under a lot of stress, lately.”

Chas pauses and studies her face for a second. “Hey, Zee, I’m not trying to butt into your marriage or anything like that.”

“No, no, you’re not.”

“I’m just not used to seeing you guys like this,” Chas says. “I don’t know what you all have going on or what kind of magic you’re using but… make sure you guys are being careful, okay?”

Zatanna knows Chas is just trying to help but suddenly it embarrasses her that someone else – especially Chas - is seeing a little of what has been going on lately.

“I know,” Zatanna says. “I will.”

This isn’t how things are supposed to be. It’s just been a bad few months.

Zatanna shrugs. “All magic in this world comes with a price, right? We’ve just been overextending ourselves. This… tiredness is part of the price.”

“Right,” Chas says. “Yeah, sure. I get it.”

Zatanna smiles at Chas. She sees what doing – he’s letting it go for her sake, giving her an out and she appreciates it even if she can tell he kind of wants to talk about it more.

Chas always did have a way to see through people.

“I’ve known John a long time,” Chas says quietly. He looks over at the couch, watching his best friend with an endearing level of fondness. “Watch out for him, okay?”

“I will. I promise.”

“He really loves you, you know.”

Zatanna smiles as she watches Nick and John laugh together on the couch. “I know,” she says.

**

After Chas leaves, Zatanna lays in bed awake, long after John and Nick have fallen into a drunken sleep.

Nick lies on his stomach, one arm thrown over John’s chest and his face pressed into John’s shoulder. Nick’s mouth is slightly open, his features soft and slightly vulnerable in sleep. John looks like he’s actually sleeping soundly for once. He looks relaxed, like he’s finally able to sleep deeply.

Zatanna wishes she could sleep. She keeps thinking about her conversation with Chas, turning it over in her mind.

Sometimes she looks around their apartment and feels this strange longing for this exact moment, a yearning for something that isn’t even gone yet. It’s this… anticipatory grief that she doesn’t know where it comes from or why she can’t exactly understand it.

Sometimes, when she’s lying in bed, she tries to record everything in her memory. Her dad’s painting on the wall in the living room, the chipped kitchen cabinets, the color she painted the bedroom, their heavy (but very comfortable) couch. The way Nick and John look while they’re asleep together, chests rising and falling easily in the light from the street lamps outside.

Remember this, she repeats to herself. _Rebmemer._

It makes her feel a little silly, doing this. It’s like missing someone when they’re still in the room with you.

**

“Hey Zee,” John says the next evening while the three of them are setting up for a new ritual in the apartment living room. “You ever try focusing your magic another way?”

“Like what?”

“Dunno,” John says. He takes another look at the symbol Nick has drawn on the sheet of paper he’s holding and begins drawing another rune inside the circle. “Anything instead of speaking, yeah?”

“My dad taught me to do some little things without a voice,” Zatanna says. “But the bigger things, I’ve always had to focus with speech and hearing myself say it, you know?”

“Hm.”

Zatanna stops setting up a line of candles on the outside of the chalk circle and playfully narrows her eyes at him. “Why?”

John grins at her. “Okay, hear me out –”

“You want me to do another con with you.”

“What?” John says. “No.”

"Really? No?"

“I mean, okay, yes, if we are _technically_ –”

“Yeah, everything with you is technically.”

John laughs, a little sheepish. “Magic is all about the in between, love. It’s where Nick and I operate the best. I’m just saying – hey, what about reading?”

“What about it?”

“Well, reading is just repeating the words to yourself inside your head, yeah?”

“I mean, I guess,” Zatanna says. “I’ve never tried something like that before. Might be would be worth a shot. But I’m still not doing whatever scheme you have planned.”

“Eh,” John says. “You’ll come around.”

Nick scoffs at this and shakes his head but doesn’t say anything and continues drawing the chalk circle on the ground.

“What?” Zatanna says.

“You’re just funny, Zee,” Nick says. “That’s all.”

“Why?”

“I mean,” Nick says. He shrugs but his jaw is tight and he’s pressing a little harder with the chalk than normal. “I’ve only been saying that you need to expand your magic focus from the fucking beginning, but suddenly when John brings it up it’s a great idea.”

**

A few nights later, Zatanna wakes to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom.

She squints and rolls over to check the clock on the bedside table. 3:47 AM. A tiny sliver of light shines out from underneath the door to the bathroom.

Nick and John spent the evening trying a new technique to search for the Books of Magic that involved some Enochian script and a catacomb in an old cemetery. Zatanna had a show so she let the boys do their thing. After she got done performing, she came home to an empty apartment, ate a metric shit ton of snacks for dinner, watched her favorite guilty pleasure TV show, and fell asleep early in the middle of the bed. It was perfect.

Zatanna blearily gets up from the bed to shut the bedroom door and notices that John is passed out on the couch on his stomach, the side of his face smushed into the cushions. One of his arms dangles off the side, his hand skimming the floor.

She tenderly takes off his boots and covers him with a blanket. John doesn’t move, dead to the world. She can feel the lingering dark magic energy coming off of him, even while he’s asleep. He’s going to have a hell of a magic hangover in the morning so it’s probably best not to move him tonight.

She expects to find Nick in the shower, but when she cracks opens the bathroom door, she finds Nick standing at the sink, shaving his head with an electric razor. His shirt, tie and belt sit in a crumpled heap in the corner of the bathroom, and Zatanna watches the muscles in his back move as he runs the razor over his head.

“Whoa… okay,” Zatanna says, blinking as her eyes adjust to the harsh bathroom light. “Hi.”

A glass of whiskey sits on top of the medicine cabinet, the bottle on the floor. She watches as long pieces of Nick’s dark hair fall onto his bare shoulders or into the sink as he runs the guard over his head.

“Hey, babe,” Nick says. He briefly glances at her in the mirror and then goes back to running the guard over the sides of his head. Another large clump of black hair falls into the sink. “Hold on, I’m almost done.”

Although the look might have ordinarily suited him, the combination of the short cut, the dark circles under his eyes, and his recent weight loss makes him seem kind of… sick.

“What, um…” Zatanna says. She’s trying to be gentle but also supportive. The dark magic coming off of him is so strong – they must have been getting into something pretty intense. “What made you decide to shave your head at four in the morning?”

“Well,” Nick says and shrugs a little. “I finally realized it’s time to start taking all this shit seriously.”

 _Yikes,_ Zatanna thinks. “Oh. Um, okay—”

“Did I miss anything?” Nick says. He stares at himself intently, running a hand over his cropped hair.

Zatanna smells the whiskey and feels the sharp crackle of magical energy when she enters the bathroom. It feels like if she touched him, she would get shocked. She can tell Nick is a little bit drunk, but still not drunk enough to completely take the edge off, especially if he has been delving into the really dark stuff.

Zatanna carefully runs her hands over his head, checking for long patches. Nick hands her the razor and she runs it over his head a few more times in the back just in case.

“Want me to clean up your neck?” Zatanna says.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Zatanna takes the guard off the razor and sets it down on the sink and starts to slowly trim up around his ears and even out the bottom of his neck.

Nick grins at her in the mirror. “You hate it.”

“Um,” Zatanna says with a small laugh as she focuses on keeping the line straight across on the back of his neck. “No, no. I don’t hate it.”

“Liar.”

“I mean,” Zatanna says. “It’s different. That’s all. I’m just not used to it yet.”

Nick playfully raises an eyebrow. “Uh huh.” He watches her in the mirror for a minute. “Thanks for doing this, babe.”

“Sure.”

Zatanna steps back and checks the line on his neck before continuing with the razor.

“So… anything you need to tell me?” Zatanna says. She smiles at him in the mirror as she brushes some of the stray hair off of his shoulders. “You’re not preparing to audition for a sequel to _Fight Club_ or something, right?”

She means it as a joke but Nick isn’t laughing.

“Well,” Nick says. He reaches for the glass on top of the medicine cabinet. “I decided I’m done fucking around – this is fucking war.”

Zatanna stops for a second and looks at him in the mirror. “What?”

“We saw The Cult of Cold Flame there tonight —“

“You fought the Cult of Cold Flame?” Zatanna says. “Oh my God, Nick, what—”

Nick waives her off. “Nah, nah we didn’t fight them. Slipped out before they saw us –too many of them, even if we had you there. You remember Roman, the prick who tried to stab me the night we met John? He was there tonight. That slick asshole must have gotten promoted or something. He’s the leader of a bunch of Cult goons now.”

Zatanna sighs. “Great.”

“The Cult was working on something and at first we couldn’t figure out what it was – and then I realized. They’re searching for the fucking Talisman! I’m so fucking stupid, we’ve been going about this thing all wrong.” Nick finishes the glass and sets it down on top of the medicine cabinet. “We want to find the Books of Magic? We find the fucking Talisman and it shows us everything. It’s fucking brilliant.”

“What do you need with a talisman?”

Nick sighs like he can’t believe he has to explain this to her. “It’s not just ‘a’ talisman, Zee. It’s THE Talisman. The ultimate Talisman, the fucking mother of all Talismans.”

“Okay…” Zatanna says carefully. She clips a few stray hairs she missed behind his left ear. “So what does The Talisman do?”

“I think it’s the first step. The literal first piece. It’s how we’re going to find the Books of Magic,” Nick says. He’s got an intense, almost manic energy about him and it’s sort of creeping her out. “The Talisman is designed to find magical maps – you tap into its power and it leads you right to them. I mean, it does a whole bunch of other awesome, powerful _Indiana Jones_ type shit, but the most important thing is that we can use the Talisman’s magic to find the map that leads us right to the Books of Magic.”

“That’s really great, Nick,” Zatanna says. She examines his neck one last time and shuts the razor off. “Well done.”

Nick runs a hand over his head and studies himself in the mirror. “I think we might be able to find them, Zee. I’m serious – we might actually be able to get our hands on the Books of Magic. Can you even fucking imagine? This is completely within reach if we just put in the work on this like we should have from the beginning. We find the Talisman, and it leads us right to the map and then we finally get our hands on the Books.”

Zatanna smiles. “This is exciting! So we have a path forward.”

“It’s going to be some intense work, but we just need to put the time in,” Nick says.

“Okay, I mean, yeah. Let’s do it.”

Nick checks his reflection one more time and then snaps his fingers. “Oh – shit. Forgot to mention. There’s a full moon tomorrow night and we’re going to need it to reveal the Talisman’s location. I need you to cancel your show tomorrow. Well, today, I guess.”

Zatanna narrows her eyes. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I know. It sucks,” Nick says, but he isn’t looking at her in the mirror, he’s still looking at himself. “Obviously I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t important.”

Zatanna is trying not to be annoyed with him, she really is. “I don’t… really want to cancel my show the same day if I don’t have to, Nick. It’s not right. Especially not over finding the theoretical location of something we don’t even know exists.”

“Babe, we only have a small window that we can do this,” Nick says. He runs a hand over his head in the mirror again. “I need you with all your power. Finding the Talisman isn’t going to be easy and I don’t think you can do that and perform in the same night. I know you don’t want to admit it but it’s true. It’s too much magic, even for you.”

“The Oblivion has been really good to me, I don’t want to just –”

“Jesus Christ, Zee. I don’t understand what the big deal is. It’s one show and I’m just looking out for you here. We’re all tired, so I’m saying let’s be efficient.”

“Okay, so… I know you’re putting a lot of time into this and this is really important to you,” Zatanna says. She chews her bottom lip and tries to decide how to say this because she can already tell this is going to be a fight. “But finding this Talisman or the Books of Magic or whatever isn’t everything. We still have to live our lives, you know? We can’t just abandon everything else.”

Nick scoffs and turns to her. “Really? This again?”

“What?”

“Fuck, I tell you about a huge breakthrough we made tonight and you just can’t help but shit on it.”

“Come on, Nick, I’m just saying I don’t think you’re –”

Nick suddenly slams the wall next to him with an open palm.

“ _Goddammit_ , Zatanna!” Nick’s nostrils flare, and he bares his teeth at her. “Can you not pick at me for one _fucking_ second about all the time I spend on this? Is that too much to ask?”

Zatanna is a little stunned and she stares at him, dumbfounded by his reaction. She’s not afraid of him, not exactly. It’s a different fear that she’s can’t quite put her finger on, and the manic look in his eyes is unnerving.

“This is my life’s work! I’m trying to save the fucking world here and instead of focusing on that, I feel like I spend half my fucking time managing your fucking _feelings_ about it! And honestly? I’m getting real fucking sick of it.”

“What—”

Nick’s cuts her off and shakes his head like he can’t believe it. “I mean, fucking Christ Zatanna, are you here to be the greatest magic user in the world or be a fucking two-bit stage magician that fights low level demons and vampires on your nights off? You have the power potential to put the whole fucking Justice League in their place if you would just fucking listen to me for once. You want me to guide you? Teach you? Then remember _I’m_ the fucking Master here in this coven. Me. I know what I’m fucking doing and you and John both need to follow me.”

Zatanna’s mouth falls open a little in shock that he even went there with that. “Wow.”

She takes a breath and tries to pause before she says something she regrets, the weighing of whether it’s worth having a fight about this at four in the morning. She’s royally pissed but she’s also just… really tired.

She finally shakes her head in disbelief and scoffs. “Okay, well. I’m not going to do this with you right now because clearly you’re strung out on whatever dark shit you were just using and we can’t have a normal conversation, so. On that note, I’m going to go to bed.”

Nick blinks a little – clearly he expected a different reaction.

Zatanna tosses the electric razor in the sink a littler harder than she should have and turns to leave.

“Make sure you clean all your hair out of the sink,” she mutters.

“Shit,” Nick says softly once he realizes he’s fucked up. He reaches out for her before she leaves the bathroom. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Zatanna stands there, arms crossed over one of John’s old Mucous Membrane t-shirts and waits for him to continue.

“Hey,” Nick says. “I’m sorry, okay? Jesus. I’m sorry.”

“What is going on with you?” Zatanna says. “Who even are you right now? You don’t get to talk to me like that.”

“Fuck, I said I’m sorry, Zee,” Nick says, but he doesn’t sound like he’s that sorry. “I get it, I’m an asshole. I’m sorry. I’m just working really hard and I just get frustrated because… I know you don’t get it.”

That’s it.

Zatanna feels the familiar anger bubbling up and she briefly thinks of just letting that comment go, especially with the state Nick is in right now, but she’s over his shit.

“Oh, I don’t get it?” Zatanna says, her voice raising. She shakes her head in disbelief. “You realize I’m the only one working now, right? That I’m the only reason you have an apartment to come home to after all your little dark magic sessions?”

Nick winces. “Yeah. I know.”

“I have done almost everything you have asked because I get that this is important but I cannot do everything. I’m trying, but I just can’t. I mean, I’m going to work, using a lot of magic to perform a show, and then coming home and scrying with you and John using some deep, dark magic that is literally draining me. And on days I’m not performing, I’m working twice as hard with you, again, using magic that I fucking hate.”

Nick looks at the floor and runs a hand over his head. “Yeah.”

“Do you know how much pressure that is?” Zatanna says. She suddenly has a vision of the old shapeshifter woman on the floor below their apartment listening to their fight through the bathroom airshaft but Zatanna is too worked up at the moment to care. “It seems like you don’t, Nick, so I’ll tell you. It sucks, and I hate it. My magic is depleted and I feel sick all the time from magic overuse and… I don’t know, I don’t feel like myself. I am _exhausted_. So you don’t get to stand here and yell at me and tell me I don’t get it because I am working just as hard as you and I have supported you in all this shit from day one.”

“I know I’ve been pushing a lot - ”

“Yeah! You have! And it’s taking a toll on me, and I can see it’s taking a toll on you and on John, too. You know, John might not say anything and just go along with it but I won’t. It’s not all just about Nick Necro and The Books of Magic, okay? This is about all of us. Our family.”

Nick gets a little agitated at his, and she sees the challenge in his eyes. It’s like a switch has flipped inside of him.

“Look, I just – I want to be able to say at the end of the day, I did everything I possibly could, right?” Nick says. “We put in the work now, I think we could actually find these things.”

“Okay, but –“

“Fuck, what do you want, Zee?” Nick says, throwing up his hands in mock surrender. “Just tell me what to fucking do. What do you want? You want me to – to make more money? Waste my fucking time taking on more exorcism clients or scamming rich assholes with John? When I find these Books, you think we’ll ever have to worry about money ever again?”

“Nick. Come on. It’s not about the money.”

“Okay, then what?” Nick says. “Enlighten me. Please. What is it about because I can’t fucking tell with you anymore.”

“I’m… kind of worried about you. I’m worried this is like, becoming an obsession or something.”

“Yeah, so you keep telling me.” 

“Don’t. Don’t do that.”

Nick scoffs. “Jesus, I’m not—”

“These stupid Books aren’t worth it. This dark magic you’ve been using makes it seem like the Books are going to solve everything. They’re not, Nick.”

Nick sets his jaw. “Yeah,” he says, but she can’t tell if he’s just trying to placate her because he’s done. “Whatever. Fine. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Zatanna lets out a long breath. “Okay.”

What else is there to say? The only sound in the room is the dull pattering of the shower.

She turns to leave again and Nick stops her.

“Hey, Zee. Wait,” Nick says. He rubs his hands along her shoulders and searches her face. “We’re okay, right? You and I?”

“Um,” Zatanna says. “I don’t know. I mean, I hope so.” She pauses. “It’s been kind of hard lately.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m an asshole. I’ll do better, I promise.”

“Just talk to me. Don’t shut me out.”

“I need you in this with me,” Nick says. “I’m serious. You’re so important to the — to me. I can’t do this without you.”

Zatanna puts her arms around his shoulders. “I love you,” she says. “I’m in this with you. So is John. God, especially John – you need to take care of him because he won’t take care of himself. He would rather die than tell you no. So… I don’t know, remember that, I guess. Keep your priorities straight.”

“I know,” Nick says. “We’re a team, right? We’re in this together.”

“Yeah. We’re a team,” Zatanna says. She gives him a small, reassuring smile. “Now clean your hair out of the sink and come to bed.”

**

Nick acts like everything is fine the next morning.

He’s apologetic about last night and the three of them end up lounging in bed together for a long time, luxuriously having the kind of easy, fun sex they haven’t had in a while. Nick is attentive, present. At one point, Nick looks into her eyes while he’s fucking her, all lust and love and openness and she remembers thinking that he actually looks… happy.

It doesn’t last.

Later, when Nick realizes that she’s serious about not cancelling her show, he gets all quiet and withdrawn and all that does is piss Zatanna off so they just don’t really talk after that. The icy silence sits heavy between them while Nick makes coffee in the kitchen and Zatanna drinks her tea on the couch and then Nick announces he and John are leaving to get set up for the ritual.

“Bye,” Zatanna says, but doesn’t bother turning around from the TV. John looks like he wants to say something to her, but instead he takes his packet of Silk Cuts from his pocket and kisses her hair before he follows Nick out the door.

She considered calling Nick out on his shit, just telling him to stop being such a dickhead – normally she would – but after last night she knows he’s just going to deny anything is wrong in the first place and then they’ll sort of fight some more and the whole thought of it is just tiring, really.

Let it be known that Nick Necro never did anything he didn’t want to do. He just has to work through it and they just have to deal with the suck until he snaps out of it.

Normally she feels excited and powerful before shows, but instead today she doesn’t feel any of that. She just feels sad and stressed out and then a little ridiculous for feeling sad and stressed out.

When Nick gets like this, sometimes she feels like he is no longer theirs, he does not belong to them. He is taking another path, slipping silently away down a road where she and John cannot follow even though she carries a part of him within her, her soul and John’s literally intertwined with his.

Something is coming, and whatever it is, she feels like she can’t stop it. Try as she might, Nick is leading them on a road leading somewhere and she can't see the ending.

Is some of this her fault? Maybe she isn’t being supportive enough. If she would have thrown herself with him into The Books of Magic from the beginning, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten so deep into the dark shit and they wouldn’t be here right now and, well. Everything would be fine.

All of this is too much, though, and it’s bumming her out and she doesn’t want to think anymore, so she turns on the most mindless TV show she can find and closes her eyes and tries to turn her brain off.

**

After her show is over, Zatanna doesn’t even have time to finish walking off stage before John and Nick bust in through the (secret, locked) backdoor that John in particular knows he’s not supposed to use.

Nick and John are both covered in blood (hard to tell what is their own or someone/something else’s) and some weird, green substance. John has Nick’s arm slung around his neck, trying to keep Nick on his feet. Nick coughs and spits some blood out of his mouth onto the floor.

“Hey! What the hell, you guys know the rules —” Mikey starts, but then once they actually see what’s going on they blink and take a step back. “Holy shit.”

“Zee!” John says, ignoring Mikey. “You gotta heal Nicky, love.”

Zatanna takes one look at the two of them and nods. “Let’s get him into my dressing room. Mikey, give me a minute.”

"Yeah, yeah," Mikey says. "I'm good out here, you take care of him."

Zatanna uses a levitation spell to move Nick the rest of the way as John opens her dressing room door and follows her inside.

“Hey, alright assholes, back to work,” Zatanna hears Mikey say to the rest of the crew backstage before she shuts her dressing room door. “I want to get out of here at a normal human time tonight. Jesus, we’re at The Oblivion, this is like the _least_ fucked up shit you’ve seen today.”

Zatanna levitates Nick’s body over to a large table she uses to store her make-up and other props. John quickly walks over and clears the table with one swipe of his arm before she lays Nick down on it.

“Nick?” Zatanna says. “Can you hear me? I’m going to heal you up, alright?” She looks at John. “What happened?”

John loosens his tie and tries to wring some of the green goo out of it. He’s wounded too, she can see, but not as badly as Nick. “Zee, we –”

“We fucking got it, Zee," Nick says, coughing. His eyes are unfocused because he’s in a lot of pain but he’s somehow smiling through this. "Stole it right out from under The Cult of Cold Flame’s noses. Those fucking assholes.”

“Nick,” Zatanna says, but she worriedly meets John’s eyes over Nick’s body. “Don’t talk, I need to start healing this.”

“We got it, Zee.” Nick says as he closes his eyes. “We got the fucking Talisman.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with this little story so far! 
> 
> Not that it matters, but I always pictured the Chas in this story as the one from the Constantine TV show.
> 
> Zatanna's use of magic other than her voice is documented in the comics, but she only uses it on very rare occasions and only in dire circumstances. In this story, she hasn't had to do anything like that yet.
> 
> I used they/them pronouns for Mikey (Zatanna's stage manager from the comics) because that's my own little headcannon given Mikey's background.


End file.
